Washington State Recruiting Breakdown: Wide Receiver Alex Van Dyke (Offered)
By Nick Nordi
Alex Van Dyke, a 6-4 200-pound receiver out of Cosumnes High School in Elk Grove, California is a player who has all the potential to be a primary receiver at a division-1 school. Washington State head coach Mike Leach are aiming for that school to be WSU.
At 6-4 and a junior Van Dyke is already taller than all but one of the WSU receivers, only Conner Johnson is taller at 6-5, so the height is a huge advantage that he would have already at Washington State. Van Dyke uses his height to his advantage as much as possible when going up for the ball. Van Dyke has very long arms and is able to reach above the defender and pull down the ball without any issues.
To go along with his height is his size and power behind the size. If a defender tries to tackle Van Dyke he better either have be in a group or make a good tackle. Van Dyke is a player that you can’t just arm tackle and expect to bring down right away making it easy for him to break free more yards after contact. With the size and power also comes his blocking. As a WR it is a must to be able to block for your teammates and Van Dyke is able to do that and drive the player down the field opening up holes and lanes for his teammates.
Off the line Van Dyke is very shifty and combines that with speed and his long arms and is easily able to get by the corners and break free in the open field. When a defender tries to jam Van Dyke and throw him off his route it rarely works as Van Dyke jams the defender back and frees himself up. He is able to get right back onto where he was at and get open.
After the catch if he is in the open field there is nobody catching him from behind. What scares me more is he doesn’t show the same speed at all times when on the field. His field vision is not the best but he still gets upfield and gets yards. With a little work on his middle of the field game Van Dyke will become a very good receiver.
An addition to Van Dyke’s abilities on the field is his help and support he has off the field. Van Dyke’s father, Alex Van Dyke Sr., played college football at Nevada and broke records there then went on to play in the NFL for five years for Philadelphia and the New York Jets.
For an idea of what the cougars receiver situation is take a look at our early receivers preview.
Besides Washington State Van Dyke is interested in California, Nevada, Oregon State, UCLA, USC, Utah as well as a few others.
Below you will find the link to Van Dyke’s Hudl page.